ESTATE PLANNING THROUGH FAMILY MEETINGS
(without breaking up the family)
Lynne Butler
Self-Counsel Press
(a division of)
International Self-Counsel Press Ltd.
USA Canada
Copyright © 2012
International Self-Counsel Press
All rights reserved.
Introduction
Have you ever tried to bring up a sensitive topic with someone who simply did not want to talk about it? You feel like you have to force a conversation on someone because you really think he or she needs to know something important, but it seems impossible. The person is unhappy about it and you are uncomfortable and the whole thing ends up being an argument or creating a scene. Almost everyone has been in that situation once or twice, and almost everyone wishes they knew a better way to deal with it.
Talking to your parents about difficult topics has an extra dimension of difficulty simply because they are your parents. Most of us were raised to respect our parents and not to question their judgment about how they live their lives. It can be a lot easier for a parent to shut down an unwanted conversation than it is for other people, just by drawing on authority as your mother or father.
In addition, most of us have trouble making the shift from having our parents look after us to having us look after our parents. We are so used to thinking of them as being competent individuals that it is difficult to accept that they may need our help. This can make many people reluctant to speak up on sensitive topics, and we may wait too long to take on the role of protector.
Have you ever tried to tell your aging parents that you think they might be losing their mental faculties and that legal steps should be taken to let someone take over? That is an unpleasant conversation that many people dread, as it rarely goes well. Then there is the talk in which you try to convince your aging parents that they need to make wills. Again, this topic is near the top of the list of what everyone wants to avoid.
What about holding a family meeting? It is a great idea in principle but most families have never had one. They might feel awkward trying to hold one. Just the idea of having this kind of meeting raises a flurry of questions for most people, such as who should go to the family meeting? Who should run the meeting? What should be talked about in the meeting? The biggest question of all is how do you turn the results of a family meeting into a legally effective estate plan?
How do you have this conversation with your parents? How do you get the whole family to talk about what needs to be done for your mom and dad? How do you make sure that all of the talking is worthwhile and results in a proper, legally documented, sensible estate plan?
Knowing that the topic is essential does not necessarily make it any easier to bring up.
This book will explore how and when to raise these topics in a constructive way and bring about a successful discussion. The goal is to clarify and understand your parents’ or your family’s goals and document them in a legally effective way. Whether you just want to talk to your parents or you want to hold a full family conference, you will find ideas in this book about how to handle it in a way that will result in the right legal solution being put into place.
If you are reading this book, you may have a parent or other relative who is ill, in need of surgery, contemplating a move to long-term care, or showing the early signs of mental deterioration. In other words, your parent is beginning to need help from you and other family members. Most likely, the parent you are concerned about does not have a will, an enduring power of attorney, or a health-care directive in place. You want your parent to get these documents in place before it is too late.
Even if your parents are completely healthy and are showing no signs yet of failing mental capacity or physical frailty, you may rightly want them to get on with their planning while they are mentally healthy. The topics covered in this book apply equally to elderly individuals who still have their complete mental and physical health.
Maybe you are thinking about how to bring up the subject of planning with your parents, or you have already brought it up and did not get the reaction you hoped for. Perhaps they were reluctant to do any planning, or even worse, they saw your involvement as interference and resent you for it.
Now what? How do you start a constructive conversation on such a potentially upsetting subject? Who should be involved? What is the process going to be like? How do you get things going without causing any family disharmony or upsetting anyone? Can it possibly be done without tears or shouting? What can you reasonably expect to achieve? Is it really possible to take all of this emotion and talking and form it into a legal plan of action that will be in place when you need it?
In this book we will explore all of these questions, and more. You will learn more about why people are reluctant to plan, so that you can understand and deal with objections to planning. You will read about some specific conversation starters for bringing up a touchy legal subject with your parents or with the entire extended family. You will see how family meetings are held and will learn to design an agenda for your own meeting. You will learn more about who should be included and excluded. You will also learn more about some of the specific situations and questions that cause problems for family estate planning as well as ideas for dealing with them.
There are two different situations addressed throughout the chapters of this book. One is the case in which you want to speak only to your parents and there is nobody else in the family who will be involved in the process. This is where many readers will see a familiar scenario. Chapter 4 talks specifically about having a conversation with parents, though the information in all chapters will be useful to help you prepare for, conduct, and follow up on your discussion.
The second situation is that in which an entire family is going to sit down together to decide what needs to be done. This might be to talk about a parent’s failing health and what the family should do about it. The family might sit down to talk together where there is a family business, farm, or cottage to deal with. Sometimes families like to do communal planning not because of a business or cottage, but because they want to ensure that family wealth is preserved or distributed fairly. Sometimes a family meeting is held simply because having such a meeting will ensure that everyone knows what is happening and individual family members will have the chance to be involved in decision making. Quite often the parents want a family meeting just because they want to know what everyone thinks of their plans.
Chapter 8 will show you how to prepare an agenda. Chapters 8, 9, and 10 will help you run your meeting successfully and smoothly. Chapter 11 will help you with the matters that have to be taken care of after the discussions have taken place.
If you are using professional advisors such as lawyers and accountants, you will find that this book gives you plenty of practical tips and ideas about making the most of the information you are receiving from those advisors. It will bring up topics that interest you and that you will want to explore further with your professional advisors. It will also give you ideas on how and when to involve your lawyer or accountant.
This book will also talk about the human side of making legal arrangements; it explores the fears and superstitions that hinder estate planning and gives you ideas for dealing with them. It will help you remember that though legal questions are being raised, there are real people with real fears and feelings involved at every stage. This book will be a useful supplement to the advice you are getting from other sources.
Take time to gather your thoughts about the various legal